


first

by Rhavia



Series: featherbed [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, plus i wanted to round things out with more of gendry's pov, the prelude to the forgesex in 'before'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 11:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18622741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhavia/pseuds/Rhavia
Summary: It was not that he hadn’t seen the looks she had given him each time she had visited the forge under the guise of pestering him to craft her new weapon. She was hardly subtle, much of a cool exterior as she tried to keep now. Perhaps she wasn’t trying to hide it, and he didn’t quite know what to think of that either. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen the looks but that he had tried his very best to ignore them; he was still a bastard, and she was still the daughter of a lord. He hadn’t been successful. From the moment his ‘m’lady’ comment had broken a smile across her face so, too, had any resolve he may have had broken.Takes place prior tobefore.





	first

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly didn't mean to write this much Gendrya, but each time I'm 80% done with one piece the lines for another start popping up in my head

Gendry hadn’t known to expect her in Winterfell, and if he were honest he could have done with a warning. When she had swept into the forge amidst the Hound’s mockery of him – a man he remembered, quite clearly, from her list – he had temporarily forgotten how to form words. “You’ve gotten better,” Arya had said. “You too,” he had replied, and wondered if he should strike himself off the anvil next.  
  
She had grown from the scrappy young girl he had once known. Not just physically; she had a different air to her, one that stood to intimidate those who were frightened by confidence, particularly that of a woman. She had always been bull-headed, it was a trait they shared, only she had often not thought her actions through, and he could remember a number of times having to save her from her own foolishness – when she thought an attempt at the Hound’s life was wise being the first to come to mind. She made no move to slash him off her list in that moment and he wondered if she was biding her time. If she still even had a list left. She knew who she was now, shamelessly, and it was a stark contrast to who she had been.  
  
And so many years after her request, he had finally made his way to Winterfell; serving another of her brothers, in yet another war.  
  
It was not that he hadn’t seen the looks she had given him each time she had visited the forge, under the guise of pestering him to craft her new weapon. She was hardly subtle, much of a cool exterior as she tried to keep now. Perhaps she wasn’t trying to hide it, and he didn’t quite know what to think of that either. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen the looks but that he had tried his very best to ignore them; he was still a bastard, and she was still the daughter of a lord. He hadn’t been successful. From the moment his ‘m’lady’ comment had broken a smile across her face so, too, had any resolve he may have had broken.  
  
Gendry wonders if her offer still stands, and that is how he finds himself back in the forge on the eve of their death, watching her practice the bow like it’s child’s play. She has sharpened her senses in the years past and he couldn’t have snuck up on her if he’d tried, so he’s not surprised when she turns to him, unfazed by his presence, eyes her weapon and asks briskly, “That for me?”  
  
He holds it out to her, watching her face closely. He know she’s impressed by the smile hinting at her lips, even if her words don’t suggest such; he watches her twirling the lance in her hands, assessing its weight, and it dawns on him that the bow is only one of many weapons this Arya Stark is seasoned with. He had told her to go to the crypts, selfishly, and she had been right to refuse. Likely a more skilled fighter than most of the North, a thought both relieving and frightening, she would outlive him on the night to come.  
  
His mind is elsewhere, though. “Last time you saw me you wanted me to come to Winterfell,” he says, “Took the long road, but…” He lets the sentence drop off. He’s not much sure he had anything to finish it with in the first place – _but I’m here now_ isn’t enough because he wasn’t there then. It feels as though he is asking forgiveness. He can remember the hurt on her face when he rebuffed her at the Brotherhood, how she had stormed away from him to hide what he had suspected were tears. _I can be your family._ It had rung in his ears for days on the back of that wagon, across the sea. It had even followed him back to King’s Landing until he had buried it deep.  
  
He had prepared for rejection, but not the blunt way she asks about the Red Woman, as if she’s followed his thoughts and not the question he left out in the open.  
  
“I don’t like that woman,” she had said on that day, years ago, and her disdain is still plain by the way she asks if he had been with her. Her voice is low and she avoids his gaze, curiosity turning to something else. Gendry splutters as he follows after her to deny it, the tightening in his chest saying she can’t think that’s why he left her. Instead, she asks how many women he has been with. She won’t accept anything but the truth and if this is her form of jealously he’s not sure he likes it. He’d come to ask of her, not to be interrogated.   
  
“Three,” he says, finally. It seems meagre; it seems to satisfy her.  
  
She’s quiet, eyes looking him up and down, and something in her voice changes. Her grey eyes catch the light of the torches and he sees her soften. “We’re probably going to die soon,” Arya says, closing the gap between them. She’s not walking with the same confidence as before and she doesn’t break eye contact. He sees her swallow. “I ought to know what it’s like before that happens.”  
  
He stares at her. Her gaze is intense, relentless. There’s a stuttering in his chest and whether he gets out a response or not he knows it makes no difference. His eyes flicker to her lips, he murmurs her name, and then her mouth is on his. The first is just a kiss – likely her first, he realises, and she’s gifting it to him of all people – and she hesitates before the next. The second is fervent and her hands finds his neck before they find his clothes. He presses his forehead to hers, the closest he can get while her deft fingers undo buckles and straps, untie strings, and how he needs to be close to her right now to know this is real.  
  
The night is quiet and all he can hear are their breaths; hers heavy, eager, as she strips away his layers. It feels like making up for lost time; 4 long years of it when she may have thought him dead as he did her. Gendry’s hands are clumsy as he unties her leathers, like he’s in a dream and the faster he works the sooner he will wake. He smiles then, breaking their kiss, almost breaks into a laugh – the world he’s known is about to end and he’s _giddy_. This girl, woman, may be the last thing he knows, her smile mirroring his as she pulls the last of the cloth that separates him from her over his head, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.  
  
Her lips are back on his but only for a moment before she pushes him onto his back, his chest rising and falling heavy as he watches her rip off her shirt like she can’t be rid of it sooner. She raises her hands and the first of her skin his eyes catch is her waist.  
  
A breath lodges in his throat as he sees the scars; brow creasing as he follows their lines across her body. She’s not what he expected. She’s still every bit of the wolf he knew her to be but now she bares the marks to prove it. They’re a history of where she’s been, scattered across her skin; so different from his own that only tell the tale of a smith. He knows not to ask, not now, but now he realises just how much time has passed and how much she has changed. If they should survive this, as unlikely as it may be, he hopes she will let him see her scars again, tell him the story of each.  
  
“I’m not the Red Woman,” she says, drawing him back in. “Take off your own bloody pants.” His fingers have never been so nimble.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: when I went to write "and it dawns on him that the bow is only one of many weapons this Arya Stark is seasoned with" my phone somehow autocorrected 'the bow' to 'penis'. Gave me a good laugh


End file.
